somerleaze Loc: Coventry, England

I have been trying closeup of plants and insects for some time, with limited success. Back when I had the Fuji S5500, I bought a set of closeup lenses, +1, +2, +4, and +10. I found the middle two useful but the chromatic abberation with the +10 was very bad. When I got the Canon 350D I used them on that as well but the DOF and the sharpness was poor. Things improved with a Plamp (http://www.tripodhead.com/products/plamp-main.cfm) which allowd me to keep the plant steady but not all shots could be taken using a tripod. Some gardens in the UK ban the use of them. (Health and Safety I was told, someone might trip over them).

With the 450D I was beginning to think I had AF problems, so I wanted to prove the camera and lens could do it but it was just my technique that was poor. I set up my tripod, a very heavy Benbo Mk I, and used a potted palm in the garden as a subject. I used the 450D with 18-55 kit lens and no closup lens, set at 1/8 @ f16 ISO 100 and 55mm. It was a very still day so no plamp needed. I think it proves its my technique at fault.

First pic is the full frame and the second is a crop from the centre. The third is one I did in a garden hand held, a 1/160 @ f5.6 ISO 200.

Pic 1


Pic 2

Pedrochi Coffee

Thank you for your enlightenment.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

#3 is lovely!

somerleaze Loc: Coventry, England

Thanks Linda From Main, but the problem is it just isn't sharp and I couldn't work out why.

carlysue Loc: Columbus

Enjoyed them all. To my eyes, they are crisp enough. Presbyopia can be a blessing.

Robbie7 Loc: Northampton. England

Hi Somerlease :-) You are right about the ban by some estates etc regarding the setting up of tripods. I remember the first time I encountered this I was angry..When I went away and thought about it I had to agree with their logic. Usually we set up a tripod to photograph in detail something that loads of other people want to see so in effect we are hogging the viewing area to ourselves.
I remember once being told in no polite way to go away when photographing an angler, who told me I was spoiling the enjoyment of his hobby, now I take such photos at a respectable distance with my zoom lens..As for sharpness this is down to many factors, why not look these up on Google or whatever..regards

martinfisherphoto Loc: Lake Placid Florida

I ask fellow hoggers almost a year ago how to take photos of flowers. I also was having problems, mainly from slight breeeze and camera shake. I was given advice to up my shutter speed, only shoot in the morning to building a Wind box and so on. Just by accident I was wanting to photograph a flower near evening and I could not get the shot, so I popped my flash up, Bingo.. I found that Using your Flash will freeze any camera movement and slight breeze movement. Learn how to adjust your on camera flash and use this, you will be asking yourself why you never tried it before. As for DOF, up your aperture F/9, F/11 and so on. I use F/22 daily for Macro work. You'll get more of your subject in focus, but also more of the background will be present in the shot. Also you must get the subject flat/same focal plane as the lens, then your DOF will increase. Try using single focus point so you direct the camera where to focus.

Nikonian72 Loc: Chico CA

Below is your Exif info for image #3.

For available light capture, increase your ISO to 400, and halve your shutter duration to 1/160-sec, which will eliminate some hand-held camera movement.

Best scenario is to switch to speedlight illumination, that will allow shutter duration of 1/200-sec at f/16 or f/22.

somerleaze Loc: Coventry, England

Thanks to both fstop22 and Nikonian72. As soon as the garden has recovered from the winter and the flowers are out again then I will experiment using flash. As you say, it's obvious really. Thinking back, I have tried it in the past with my Fuji and the 350D but the lighting looked artificial for an outdoor picture so I had discarded it in my mind. Looking through the manual for the 450D I see it has a menu setting for flash exposure compensation so a little experimenting with that is in order.
Many thanks.